Trying to Stay Positive

I ended my 2015 season on a high. Firstly winning the Pitfichie SDA on a sunny dry weekend. I then started the BASE course at the beginning of September and began to love it immediately. The gym work was hard and we were getting out riding most days- it was awesome! And to finish it off I put some of the coaching points we had been given to practice at the Fort William Enduro and won U21 girls.

One warm Wednesday evening late September, about a month after I had started the course, I was riding downhill bikes up the downhill trails with my some friends. 

Long story short I way over estimated the size of a jump and landed basically into the next one. I must have landed on my head as I smashed my helmet and then came down with a lot of force on my front and wrist. For a minute, I couldn't breath. Finally I got a gasp of air, and I began to realise that I couldn't move my wrist. 

I ended up in hospital for a night as they were worried about internal bleeding or something like that, but luckily that was all ok. However a fractured scaphoid, some fractured ribs, a partially collapsed lung, pulled muscles in my abdomen, and lots of bruises and cuts put me completely out of action for a week or two.   

When I came back to college I was determined to still do as much as I could on the course. In the gym Kenny was really supportive, and helped me with variations of exercises so I would keep up a bit of strength, and he gave me lots of things to do to work on my balance and core. And I would try and get out on as many ride days as I could, just riding my XC bike one handed up all the hills and then watching them session areas and listening in on all the coaching points. 

After being in a cast for 9 weeks, when I finally got it off I thought things would get better immediately. But what I didn't realise was that was only the start of the recovery process. And a very long process at that. 

My hand and wrist could hardly move, all the muscles and tendons were very tight and weak, and my wrist was still very sore. I kept worrying that it was still broken. I could still hardly do any of the stuff the others were doing in the gym with weightlifting bars, and I couldn't ride any of the trails they were doing on ride days.

During the next few weeks the movement and strength got gradually better. But it felt like anytime I took step forward and it looked like it was improving, I would take 2 steps backwards and it would get worse again. I wrote down some of the little milestones I reached to keep myself positive.

Day of getting cast off:

Back riding jumps and smooth trails (with Loic Bruni!!) 

Few days after getting cast off: 

Back deadlifting with bar

Starting to put light weight on wrist with small dumbbells 

A week after getting cast off: 

One legged squats holding 10kg weight in front of me

Holding just over 300W for over 3 minutes on the rollers

A week and a half after getting cast off: 

Back to deadlifting 40kg

First time running over 20km

Back doing press ups on my fists

Wrist visibly moving more and more flexible each day 

2 weeks after getting cast off:

Deadlifting 60kg for the first time

4 weeks after getting cast off:

1 rep max on front squat- 50kg

1 rep max on deadlift- 75kg

As it was coming up to the Christmas holidays the frustration was beginning to build up. Even though I had made some progress it felt like I may as well still be in a cast. Any time I tried to ride any trails my wrist and thumb were so painful and stiff and I knew riding on it, and jolting it about like that wasn't helping it to heal at all. My physio and college tutor Kenny told me that I should take a complete break from off road riding over the Christmas holidays. So for two weeks I just did road cycling, running, skiing, and some bodyweight strength exercises. When I came back to riding after the new year it was amazing how much better my wrist felt. 

  

6 weeks after getting cast off: 

Can put some pressure and weight on my wrist
Can do press ups on hands without fully straightening arm 

7 weeks after getting cast off:

First time riding Enduro bike again with no wrist pain

First time riding Downhill bike since I crashed, over 3 months ago

Back doing push press with 25kg

Back doing clean lifts with light weight

When I knew that I could ride without a lot of pain I thought that things would go back to how they used to be again. But I very quickly realised this was far from the truth. Going back to riding properly with Base after the Christmas holidays was really tough. They were onto riding the downhill bikes on the Innerleithen downhill trails. But they had already spent weeks dialling their techniques and getting their confidence up, building up to the technical, steep trails we were now riding. They were all riding fast and confidently and weren't afraid to try things and get loose or crash sometimes. Although my wrist was now feeling a lot better, I had missed out on all of this. I wasn't feeling confident on the bike at all, and constantly in the back of my mind was the fear of crashing again and hurting my wrist again which was still quite vulnerable. 

I had to make a big effort to think about my technique and line choice on all the bits we were sessioning. I felt a lot of pressure to very quickly relearn techniques and get fast.  

But after the first few days, I began to relax into the fun atmosphere of ride days again. And I began to see improvements each day I rode. I was still pretty scared, but I was loving riding again and was beginning to get the feel of the bike and a good body position again. Andy, Ruaridh, and Rab, and even all the others on the course were really encouraging. I couldn't have asked for a better environment to come back from injury into.  

After New Year my wrist had improved a lot, my riding was getting better and I felt like I was getting stronger and fitter again. However despite trying to eat all the right foods, drinking lots of water, taking vitamins everyday, trying to get lots of rest, trying to train super hard and monitor it all, I kept getting ill. 

Even though I tried to monitor everything I was struggling trying to work out why I wasn't feeling very fit at all and whether I needed to go out and train hard or whether I needed to rest. 

And suddenly the season was nearly upon me. 

As I’m going to be focussing on enduro this year- the Scottish Enduro Series, the British Enduro Series, and the Irish, and Italian Enduro World Series Rounds- fitness is a big worry for me.

Even though I've had a pretty tough off season with it also being the first time I've lived away from home, and I'm not feeling how I would want to feel right now, I'm trying to remain positive going into the first race of the season: the Dunkeld Enduro. I’m going to set myself some process goals, try enjoy it, and just see how it goes.